What should have been a moment of celebration has turned into a prolonged bureaucratic nightmare for a Kwara State University graduate who walked across the stage at her convocation ceremony but left without the certificate she had worked years to earn.
Gloria Akinwande (not real name) is among the over 8,000 students who graduated from KWASU during the institution's 13th Convocation Ceremony in December 2025, but she remains the only one in her cohort still waiting for her degree certificate due to a name mismatch between her JAMB and National Identity Management Commission records.
The issue traces back to 2021 when NIMC corrected an error in the middle name on her NIN slip. Akinwande said the commission processed the correction without delay, leading her to believe her troubles were over.
"In 2021, an error was made on the middle name on my NIN slip by the NIMC, and this made me request that the commission correct the error. It did not take the commission long to correct, and I was quite delighted with the development. This was because I thought all my problems had been resolved," she told FIJ on Tuesday.
Immediately after NIMC corrected, Akinwande submitted the same name correction request to JAMB, expecting the examination body to align its records with the updated information. Instead, JAMB rejected her application in January 2022, stating that the request was "contrary to my name correction data collected elsewhere."
"After this, I also made the same name correction request to JAMB. This was in the same year NIMC made the correction to my name. However, JAMB failed to treat my request," she said.
She described JAMB's response as confusing and said the examination body's refusal to process her request created a much larger problem. "In addition to the fact that JAMB's response seemed alien to me, the examination body's reluctance to treat my request further led to a bigger problem for me," she stated.
The full impact of the unresolved issue became clear when KWASU refused to release her degree certificate, citing the name discrepancy between her JAMB records and other official documents.
"Unfortunately, and unlike my peers, I have not been given my degree certificate by the school because of the name discrepancy, and my pending name correction request with JAMB. I have been left hanging," Akinwande said.
FIJ sent an email to JAMB on Tuesday morning seeking clarification on the rejection and the prolonged delay in resolving the matter, but the examination body had not responded at press time.
The case highlights the challenges graduates face when discrepancies arise between records held by different government agencies, particularly when one agency approves a correction while another does not, leaving individuals trapped with potentially life altering consequences.
